The Pursuit of More Than Friendship
by TheGreatAndPowerfulMoz
Summary: It couldn't possibly be that hard to make your best friend fall in love with you, now could it? Especially not with some advice from your family... Percy/Oliver


**Author's Note**: Here we go, folkies! Oliver/Percy is my official one hundred percent One True Pairing, and I am squeeing with joy about finally writing one. Now I'm realising I have absolutely nothing planned out whatsoever. Oh dear. I shall try my best, I s'pose. Oh, and if you ship Neville/Cedric I have a fic with them up that you may possibly feel like considering checking out. Anyway, review if you want to, flame if you must. Enjoy if you feel so inclined. Here we go. (Weeeeeeeeeeee!)

This sentence's function is to divide between my Author's Note and the start of the story, m'kay?

Oliver Wood was confused.

That wasn't really an abnormal state of affairs, what with all the bludgers he was hit with on a regular basis, but lately he'd been feeling _especially_ confused. About one thing in particular. His name was Percy Weasley.

Oliver had known Percy since they'd met on the Hogwarts Express. They'd sat together, and Percy had given Oliver politely puzzled looks as he'd blathered on(and on, and on, and oooon) about Quidditch. When Oliver finally stopped talking, Percy declined to comment, instead turning to his battered copy of Hogwarts: A History. It was an... interesting... way to start a friendship, to say the least.

But they'd become friends, despite their differences. That was probably a good thing, seeing as Percy was the only other Gryffindor boy in his year and it would have been pretty unpleasant to hate him.

Oliver listened to Percy rambling on(and on, and on, and oooon) about rules, and the Ministry and schoolwork. He was bored, but he listened. And Percy did likewise when Oliver ranted about Quidditch. When it was halfway decent weather, Percy would take a textbook and sit in the stands during Quidditch practise. Percy would help Oliver study, too. In fact, at this point(Fifth Year- the par-tay year!), Oliver was reasonably certain that, were it not for Percy helping him prep for exams and getting on his case about studying, he'd have flunked every single subject he took.

Before, he'd looked at Percy was a friend. A nerdy friend, but an overall decent friend. But now, as was previously mentioned, he was confused. He liked Percy. He did. But now he really wasn't sure if he might possibly like Percy as more than a friend.

It was extremely beffudling, honestly. He'd never really actually actively liked a girl, exactly, but he'd always assumed it was coming. Eventually. Or maybe he preffered Snitches to people- he'd have been fine with that. He'd always liked Quidditch, after all. Maybe not _romantically_, really, but still- he could have made it work, he was sure.

But now he was starting to feel like he did like a person. And it wasn't a girl.

And again, he was confused. I mean, he'd _met_ gay people before(ninety-five percent of all male Hufflepuffs, for example), but he was nothing like them. I mean, gay people cared about clothes and makeup and baking and musical theatre and giggling and using enough hairspray to single-handedly destroy the ozone layer.

Okay, so maybe he'd never actually _talked_ to someone he knew to be gay. But he knew tehy existed. And he was about ninety-none point nine percent sure that was how gay people acted. Henceforth, he was reasonably certain he wasn't one of them. And of course, neither was Percy.

But he liked Percy, and Percy was certainly male. And he didn't like any gals. Therefore, gayness seemed the only plausable explaination.

Well, if he was gay and not all hairsprayified, then wasn't it possible that Percy was, too? _He_ never seemed to like any girls. So maybe wooing Percy was not such an impossible goal after all.

He decided to do the first thing that came to mind- it was a rare event for him to have much more than one thing come to mind, so waiting around for another idea could take all day- and write to his dad and ask his advice. He'd just, you know, neglect to mention the gender of his possible woo-ee. He grabbed a quill.

_Dear Dad, _

_I need to no how to make someone fall in love with me. Your probly good at that sort of thing, so right me back realy soon. _

_-Oliver _

Oliver glaced at his messy scrawl, deemed it legible, then walked down to the school Owlry and sent off his letter. With luck, his father would write him back soon and end all this puzzlement.

This sentence is to divide between Oliver's point of view and Percy's point of view, alrighty? yeah? Okay, lovely.

Percy, while not confused, was most certainly stressed. He often was, what with his O.W.L.s and his Prefect duties, but lately he'd also been stressed about something else. Oliver Wood, his dormmate and friend.

They'd been friends for years, and Percy had never thought of the possiblity of them being anything more until one day in Fourth Year. He'd been eating breakfast, and trying to cram in a few more minutes of studying before an exam later that day.

Then, suddenly, he'd looked up and noticed a Third Year girl batting her eyelashes and talking to Oliver. And he'd felt surprisingly _angry_. And strangly, jealous. It took him a moment to figure out who he was jealous _of_, actually. At first he'd thought that perhaps he liked the Third Year and wanted her to like him. He quickly tossed that theory out the window. He didn't even _know_ the Third Year. He was reasonably certain(though not positive- he didn't really know enough abot crushes to be positive about _anything_, really) that you needed to know someone to like them.

He did know the other person in the equation- Oliver. But him? Like Oliver? As if. he tossed out that theory as well, and decided to try to put this whole crush idea to rest.

But it wouldn't go to rest. It came back and plaughed him. And Oliver Wood took up a permenant residency in his mind. And suddenly everything about him became absolutely, magically wonderful. Oliver's eyes, his smile, how much he cared about Quidditch, his sloppy study habits- well, okay, maybe not his sloppy study habits. But everything else that had to do with him just seemed wonderful and good and pure.

And that was horribly, extremely stressful. Studying was difficult with Oliver's face- and body- steadfastly refusing to depart from his mind, he'd developed an actual _dislike_ of Alicia Spinnet when he'd realised she seemed to like Oliver, and it was becoming extremely difficult to hide his attraction to Oliver when they spoke.

Now Percy could think of only one thing to do- make Oliver Wood fall in love with him. It was really the only possible thing to do. It would solve all his problems- he'd be free to concentrate on Oliver some of the time, so he'd probably leave his mind while he was studying, he'd stop having this troublesome loathing for Alicia as soon as he was sure that Oliver wasn't interested in her, and he'd have no need to hide his attraction of Oliver felt the same way.

But how to go about it? Percy had very little experience in matters of the heart, so to speak. Henceforth, he decided to write one of his older brothers for advice. Charlie? No, he never thought about anything but dragons. He'd be useless. Bill? Perfect. Bill had been a Prefect like him, and he'd had a good half dozen girlfriends. Surely boyfriends were basically the same thing. But even so, he decided to leave out his potential love interest's gender, just in case the idea of homosexuality made Bill uncomfortable. Besides, it might turn out that he wasn't gay after all, just... confused. No sense upsetting anyone or causing a stir until he was certain.

_Dear Bill, _

_I am writing to enquire your advice on the pursuit of becoming "more than friends" with someone. Please reply promptly. Your perspective is much-needed. _

_Sincerely, _

_Percy Ingantious Weasley_

Well, all there seemed to be left to do now was to await his reply.

This sentence serves to inform you that this chapter of the story is over. Yes, yes, sad. I know.

**Author's Note**: So there ya have it. What shall Mr. Wood and Bill's letters contain? Duh-duh-duuuh.


End file.
